Podcast

Almost anything is possible if you’re willing to make it possible. Having the grit to push through obstacles along the way is the difference between making things happen and standing still. On this episode of the podcast Aram talk to Emma Smith of Zimt Chocolate about how she created an ethics company that provides a high quality product and her endless drive to overcome any challenge thrown her way. She shares the realities involved in getting her business off the ground, from learning how to make chocolate from an e-book and packaging her product for retail sale, to disastrous equipment malfunctions. They discuss the truth about 90’s vegan food being terrible and why Zimt will never win a foodie award. Emma’s story is an inspiring example of how grit can keep you going, and that belief and hard work will always lead to achieving your goals.

On this episode we talk about:
• What the company does
• What inspired her to make chocolate when she’d had zero previous experience with it
• Is Zimt an ethics company or a chocolate company
• Sustainability
• The role grit played in building the company and overcoming obstacles
• Her process in the early days developing a recipe
• How she got her product into stores
• Figuring out packaging and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s requirements
• Some of her biggest disasters
• Why she’s at her worst when she thinks about things
• What grit looks like for her
• How she practices self-care

About our guest:

Founder Emma Smith started out by making chocolates in her home kitchen (fun fact: in their respective home kitchens is where basically every food manufacturer on the planet started).
After getting the thumbs up from some critical taste buds, it was time to sell in retail stores. Except it’s illegal to do this from a home kitchen in Canada- the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would be enraged.

So, she began to manufacture out of a church kitchen, then a vegan cupcake shop, then a vegan yogurt factory, then in a chocolate factory, then got last minute renovicted, then in a room in a warehouse, and simultaneously, still worked with the chocolate factory, and also rented a table at a commercial kitchen.

Now Zimt proudly operates their own proper chocolate factory and has recently opened a chocolate café in Vancouver B.C.